The Wedding Diaries (34 page)

Winter

A winter wedding means you can go into full-on Pagan Fantasy Land – swags of mistletoe and ivy, fur wraps (faux, if you prefer), and BARRELS of mulled wine. An old boss of mine got married in deep winter, and was pulled from the church to her reception in an actual
sleigh
stuffed with real furs, and pulled by two huge horses. It had been specially arranged by her sisters as a surprise. I wish I had sisters like that.

I think winter weddings are really lovely for the hyggeligness of it: everyone you love wassailing and dancing like they’re chasing the darkness away. You need loads of hot booze, big Henry VIII-amounts of meat, and if you share my deranged passion for Christmas, a karaoke machine loaded with carols, like your wedding is one of those doomed-from-the-outset affairs in a Christmas Day Eastenders episode. Here’s some nice grub for a freezing wedding day:

Macaroni cheese

Such a wonderful warmer for a cold night, and so easy. You can cook it the day before, and bang it in an oven to heat through and crisp on top.

(Serves 6 with a big salad, or 12 as a side dish to a big meaty hog roast)

500g dried macaroni

40g butter

40g flour

Pint of full fat milk, plus a few tablespoons extra

Salt and pepper

300g extra-mature cheddar

100g breadcrumbs

• Put the macaroni on to boil, in a large pan of salted water with a dash of olive oil.
  
• While that bubbles away, melt the butter over a gentle heat.
  
• In a bowl, stir a few tablespoons of milk into the flour, until the mixture is smooth and free from lumps.
  
• Add the pint of milk into the melted butter, then spoon in the gloopy flour-milk mix gradually.
  
• Let that thicken. If it forms into lumps, don’t panic, just put your electric handwhisk in there and beat them out of there. No one’s watching. It does the job.
  
• Grate the cheddar and drop it into the white sauce, a handful at a time. Let it melt in. Add a bit of salt and pepper.
  
• When the macaroni is al dente, drain and put in a big ovenproof casserole dish.
  
• Pour that delicious cheesy sauce over the macaroni, and stir well.
  
• If eating immediately, scatter the breadcrumbs over the top and put in the oven at about 190C/375F for 15mins. If reheating the next day, wait until then to scatter the breadcrumbs, then cook for 30 mins at the same temp, until crispy and golden.
  

Hot punch

Bottle of red wine

Dash of fresh orange juice

Dash of brandy

1 orange, finely sliced

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

2 tbsp brown sugar

• Mix in a big pan with ½ pint of water, boil then immediately lower to a simmer, for 15 mins. Serve.
  

Spring

Oh, lovely spring. Things start to warm up again, you can start making plans for holidays (although if you’re getting married in the spring, I suspect you’ll be using all yours up; we’ll be seeing you man your office solo in the summer months, as everyone else fucks off to warmer climes and you regret that four-week trip to Malaysia in April) and weddings begin to fill every single weekend of most 25–40-year-olds’ diaries.

This is a tricky time. You’re really going to need to pull something out of the bag for this one, to convince people they really want to start that annual round of time-suck occasions again, so your food, music, booze and transport is going to need to be spot-on. Now’s the time to break out … the
Themed Wedding
.

Come on, what have you got to lose? Everyone’s weddings are so samey – white dress, serious-sounding music, tables with white and accent colour. Go crazy! Let’s go Mexican! Under the Sea! Bonnie and Clyde! God, it would be amazing. You should do it. Really. Do it? Are you going to do it? You should. You’d be realllllly cool.

My one caveat with this is, Don’t Tell the Guests. I absolutely hate surprises with a passion, so it’s definitely not so each guest is forced to gasp and freak out when they walk in, but it does mean that they don’t have added pressure
on top
of finding somewhere to sleep, something to wear, something to give you and some way of getting there. God, I really hate fancy dress parties. But I would love –
love
– to walk into someone’s wedding and find they’d decked the whole place out as a Speakeasy, or an Ocean Palace, or Acapulco. If you think friends might
like
dressing up, get some costumes together in a big basket, so once the tequila’s done the rounds everyone can pile in. Oh, this is such a good idea. You should totally do it. And while you decide on just what you’ll do, here are some great recipes for Themed bashes:

Old-Fashioned (for Speakeasies)

1 sugar cube

Angostura bitters

Double shot of whiskey (rye or bourbon)

Wide piece of fine lemon peel

Ice

• In a heavy-bottomed glass, crush up the sugar cube with a teaspoon of water, and add two dashes of the bitters. Mix in the whiskey, stir, drop in a couple of cubes of ice and the lemon peel. Because it’s a wedding, I would definitely go for the maraschino cherry on a stick that so divides drinkers of Old-Fashioneds. Period accuracy be damned.
  

Potted crab (for Aqua Romance)
(Serves 4)

300g cooked crab, white and brown meat

Butter

Nutmeg

Ground pepper

1 lemon

Fresh dill, chopped

• Melt the butter, and add the nutmeg and ground pepper. In a bowl, mix up the meat, a little grated lemon zest, the juice of the lemon and the dill, then pour over ¾ of the butter. Stir. Stuff it into a little pot, and top with the rest of the butter as a lid. Eat with buttered brown bread.
  

Mexican

There are few occasions that can’t be improved with a huge bowl of fresh guacamole.

3 ripe avocados

Lime

2 mild chillies

1 red onion

Fresh coriander

2 tomatoes

Maldon sea salt

• Mash up the avocados. Grate in a little lime zest, and squeeze in the lime juice. Finely chop the chillies and red onion – don’t touch your eyes! OH GOD. Did you touch them? Man, that
  hurts
  . Never mind. Remove and eat the tomato seeds. Chop up the coriander and tomatoes, and add them, the chillies and the onion to the avocado. Sprinkle in a little salt. Try not to eat it all before anyone else gets to it.
  

Summer

For some reason (it’s not like we can rely on the weather) we in the UK tend towards summer weddings, thus gambling either on everyone being blue with cold in their summer frocks, or sweating and dizzy on a freakishly sunny August day. But it does mean that there’s loads of nice food that’s so easy to prepare. My favourite thing at summer weddings is the barbecue: it’s easy enough to run (as long as you get someone managing it who doesn’t just stick a chicken drumstick in a flame until it’s black outside and bleeding within), cheap and mostly un-mess-up-able. Just bang loads of sausages, burgers, corn on the cobs and sweet peppers, plus some fish wrapped in wet newspaper (really, you’ll never go back once you try this) on the grill, cobble together a few salads with some edible flowers in, and Bob’s Your Uncle You Didn’t Originally Plan On Inviting But Your Mum Went Crazy And Insisted On It. Summer desserts are so easy too – if you’ve got access to a freezer, stuff it full of tiny ice creams, and if you haven’t, a couple of Eton messes or fruit salads with lashings of cream make anyone’s day. Here’s my favourite salad, with a few other things:

Favourite Salad

Obviously you’ll need loads of salads, meats, cheeses and whatnot, but when summer comes around I feel like I could eat this every day.

(Serves 2 as a main with some bread and butter, 4 as a side)

1 pack of smoked mackerel

Lamb’s lettuce

1 avocado

Handful of radishes

1 orange

Olive oil

White wine vinegar

Salt and pepper

• Cut off the peel and divide the orange into 20-ish pieces. Flake the mackerel, chop up the avocado and slice the radishes; mix all of that and the orange pieces with the lamb’s lettuce, position tastily on two/four plates. In a little jug, whisk up the olive oil, vinegar and salt and pepper to taste, then drizzle the dressing over the salad.
  

Summer Mule

So delicious, so summery:

Cucumber, sliced into fine strips

Ice cold vodka

Ginger beer

• Over ice and 5-6 long fine strips of cucumber, pour a double shot of vodka. Top up with ginger beer and add a parasol. Just because you can.
  

Music

Can come in any form at a wedding: a rock and roll outfit, some jazz quintet, a country dancing or Ceilidh band (absolutely brilliant at getting even non-dancers on their feet), a DJ you once snogged at a club years ago and have somehow remained friends with, even an iPod plugged into the venue’s sound system – as long as you’ve got something that people can shake it to, everyone will be happy. Although if your favourite music in the whole world is banging Dutch hardcore house, maybe – just maybe – you can have some crowd-pleasers on earlier in the evening for Auntie Sue and Nana.

Here are my absolute stone-cold top tens for each part of the evening.

Cocktails (afternoon – meal):

‘Where or When’ – Peggy Lee

The song is magical, and I think Peggy Lee’s is the best recording. If you insist on having a first dance, this is pretty good (also as a last dance, too).

‘Band on the Run’ – Wings

The song after which mine & Kiki’s favourite drink was named. Also: a great song. But v difficult to dance to, hence in an early slot.

‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ – Nina Simone

My friend Jack always seems to be there when this song is playing, and dances with me in the nicest way. Find a friend who’ll do you the same favour, and put this on.

‘Easy Living’ – Billie Holiday

If this track needs justifying to you, you probably shouldn’t have music at your wedding.

‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’ – Vampire Weekend

Summer in song form. Lovely, even if your wedding is on Christmas Eve.

‘Stolen Car’ – Beth Orton

One of those Proustian madeleines of a song – I’m transported back to being at the start of a relationship, so happy it seems that the pavement is dancing beneath my toes. Another gorgeous summer track.

‘Tiny Dancer’ – Elton John

A singalong classic. If there’s someone
not
singing along (albeit quietly, as it’s still early), throw them out of your wedding.

‘Borderline’ – Madonna

One of my favourite Madonna songs. Who wouldn’t want to go to an event where people drink cocktails while Madonna sings ‘Borderline’ in the background?

‘Baba O’Riley’ – The Who

I nearly walked down the aisle to this. Great track.

‘Jump in the Line’ – Harry Belafonte

A great one for warming up the crowd. Impossible to listen to without tapping your toe and swinging a little.